Selkie 699

Thank you everyone for all the game suggestions in the previous strip’s comments. I didn’t expect the previous strip to generate such a large amount of tips and ideas for card and board games. I’m really intrigued by some of them, will have to see if I can find a shop that does demos around me. 😀

The game in the strip is one I made up, but I can really see some of the suggested games being fun things to reference later on.

I basically chose to make up a board game for this strip that called to mind some of the board games from my childhood with slightly over-blown design gimmicks.

The Treasure of Dragon Mountain is won by being the first player to climb to the top of the mountain, defeating Monsters Hazards and Traps along the way. The six player tokens each have an advantage against one a disadvantage against a second and are neutral with the third, so climbing to the top is a lot of luck with a little bit of trickery in applying the Tool cards everyone gets to hold.

The Dragon at the top is also... well I'll discuss that on Friday. >:D

Discussion (23) ¬

Most games that involve significant amounts of chance tend to make me agree with Amanda. For instance, I absolutely refuse to play Yahtzee, especially with my family (who take the game way too seriously, despite there being practically no strategy in the game).

Any game that can be effectively reduced to a flipped coin is not a game I’m willing to play.

Not a fan of Killer Bunnies I take it. When the winner is picked before the end you’re in trouble. It’s not so bad if the magic carrot is worth three points and the regular carrots are worth just one. But without that rule in place it’s busy work until the end.

Yahtzee isn’t a game of chance so much as a game of risk management — deciding how to manage the luck. Do you take the three 6’s you just got, or hope to get four later? If you take the 6’s now, that’ll block your ability to score higher if you role that way again. Do you keep trying to roll that straight early in the game, or just score a couple small groups of 3’s and 4’s, hoping you can make a natural straight later?

Now, Candyland, that’s pure luck with not even strategy. The last time I played it with my niece I had to change the rules just to keep my sanity. I had it so you drew up to a hand of five, and could choose which card to play, and play multiple cards at the same time if they were the same color. And you could use the special cards to send your opponent backwards.

I wonder if you’d like Medieval Academy? It’s a drafting game (if I understand that term correctly) where each person chooses a card from their hand and passes the rest to their neighbor, and then during play you end up using all but one card from your hand.

The cards are various subjects you’re studying while trying to become a hero and butter up to the king and the princess. There’s like seven little boards and each player has a marker on each board, and during the round your markers move up based on which cards you play. At the end of the round, the top three markers on each board get points for being the best in that category (and the lowest couple in Study lose points for directing their attention elsewhere).

There’s all these little interlocking bits of strategy that you have no clue on when you first play the game. First, the people who get in the princess’s good graces get a special at the end of the round where they can move any one of their markers up a couple spaces — which can totally steal the victories from other players (you thought YOU were the best at swordplay, huh?).

Secondly, you’ve got to consider which cards to hold onto during the draft. (I enjoyed it when my friend got a really good hand to start off with, and started cursing the fact that he had all those good cards, because not only would he get to keep only one of them, but he then knew that each of his opponents would also get a good card from his original draw.)

Thirdly, you have to decide which cards to play (which one to not play), and when in the round to play it. If you play one of your good cards early, maybe people will try to beat it and you can play a second card in the same category to keep points there. But maybe they won’t try to beat you, and you can omit that second card as the one you drop during the round.

Fourthly, some of the boards get reset after a couple of rounds. Building up points over the length of the game is a bit more complicated because of that.

There’s lots of other details but I found all of that most enthralling.

This is why I allow small children in their first few times to play open handed. Even if I’m competing against them. So I can give them tips about strategy and the cards. Amanda is not thinking laterally enough. She’s only seeing the most obvious ways to use a card.

As an example of stuff you can do when you think of multiple possibilities lets take Munchkin. The idea is to get to level ten. You fight monsters, but some monsters that kill you will not attack if you’re a low enough level. One of your friends is one level shy, and can’t beat the monster period so there’s a chance he would die in battle. Keep that in mind.

There’s a card that says Gain a Level. Most players use it to give themselves a level which is the principle use for it. Now, if you’re guessing what I’m suggesting, you’re ahead of the curve. The card never says you gain a level.

So you can use it on your friend and he’s now strong enough the monster won’t just ignore him. And if he’s not powerful enough with items to kill it and can’t get help from other players he dies. Has to start anew with no items, and kinda just spins his wheels for a few turns. All with a sneaky strategy that isn’t immediate.

Me and my buddies play Munchkin just to see how dirty we can get in a friendly environment. Cheating happens left and right, any use of cards that’s legal but in a gray area of play comes in. You get to see temporary allegiances appear and disappear per turn. It becomes more of a game to see who is the sneakiest jerk rather than who can play Munchkin better.

Urrrrrgh, Talisman. It seems like totally the sort of game I should absolutely adore. It’s right in line with the kind of role play setting I enjoy. We’ve certainly had some memorable times with it. But it is one of those never-ending games, and a little like the kind of video game where you can’t save near the end and keep getting reset to earlier spots through bad luck.

Any game where the end game involves pinning your hopes on your OPPONENT managing to pass random obstacles because you know you’re nowhere near being able to do that and just want the whole thing to be over, that is an example of poor game design.

Well… it’s got a dragon figurine that moves, and a mountain, which makes this a bit harder from a design perspective, but I do know of several sites that’ll make you pieces (cards in a variety of sizes, boards, chits, stickers, just about anything you need for a prototype or for proper manufacture).

Tailsteak (author of One Over Zero and Leftover Soup) showcases a lot of homemade board games in his comic. Some of them he’s put up for free. One of them he made into an incentive on Patreon, and once his supporters passed the mark he released all the rules (and printable cards and board) to the public, which I think was pretty cool.

I think the most interesting thing you’ve got going for your idea is that there are three types of dangers and six classes based around good-bad-neutral setups. That’s a great idea to start with and you could potentially develop it from there.

Lemme know if you’d actually like to consider it, because I love brainstorming and would enjoy batting ideas around with you, and offering constructive criticism over whatever you come up with.

“If I understand copyright law right, it’s copyrighted the moment it’s created due to intellectual property laws.”

This is correct. If you don’t assert copyright, the default is complete copyright. Some people (like me) assert a copyleft to render an idea open-source. Then you can have various degrees of copyleft all the way towards copyright.

Prediction: the black spaces are the only safe spots from the dragon, everywhere else is free to be negatively impacted by said dragon (loss of turn, being pushed back to the last black space [and only 1 token per space, so hope you’re closer] or a full on “back to start, discard your hand, you died”)

yeah, like Tailsteak does for his character Jamie, in the comic: Leftover Soup. he came with a couple of good ones already. i backed a Kickstarter that featured one: Dice Farmer… that’s a fun one for us Dice Nuts that never have enough dice…

Todd loked over at his former , now quite estranged , lover and the mother of one of his children. “Why do you think that any-thing is wrong?”

“Because you keep looking over to the Spook-Maze like you are expecting it to spontainiously combust.”

Todd winced before admitting , “Well it is just that ,… did the girls seem to be acting strange to you ?”

Andy paused in handing out the blood punch , ichor-cola, and other refreshments to the children. “You mean like how as soon as we told them about how we volunteered the family to work the Halloween Carnivale they suddenly _Stopped_ fighting ? Or how Amanda-Marie _insisted_ that she and I have Selkie over for a sleep-over last weekend? Or that they had Kesha and Heather over as well? Or that the four of them insisted on watching all of the ‘Home Alone’ , ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ , and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ movies in a weekend long marathon? Or that those same little girls have volunteered en masse to work the Spooky Maze and nearly trampled over the other kids who tried to volunteer for that job?

Why no , I have not noticed any of that Todd , none of it at all.”

“Okay , there is a point whre you are just abusing sarcasm Andy, you know that right?”

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“all units, attention all units,” said the small young voice into the cell-phone that had been set to the walkie-talkie app. “Alpha Targets spotted! Repeat alpha targets spotted!”

“Yessss! Wes were rights that theys would be heres!”
” Continue at your post Agent Alicorn, let us know if they turn into the maze.”

Sounds of little girls crackling in an evil but cute manner was heard.

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“Man this year is even lamer than it was last year dude.”

“Yeah, man, Spackle is right, why are we even here any way?”

“Ah, I guess I just wanted to , OW@ what the f—-?”

“Hey don’t yuh know that you are not supposed to say swear words here ? This is a family fun zone , there are kids with delicate ears here.”

“Hey you little brat , you, … hey wait a minit’ , you are one of them ! From last year!”

“That’s right!” and with that Amanda turned arround and ran into the corn-maze that was behind her.

“Get her!”

And so the three morons, er, teenage ruffians ran after their prey….

….and to their doom.

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There are , sadly, some people who do not have tragic backstories but just simply _choose_ to be bullies or , to be blunt, ass-hats.

One such example occured one year prior to these events.

Exactly one year.

For you see one year ago before Andi sought-out her daughter, before Heather was adopted , before Todd Smith adopted a little girl with sorrowful eyes, those three girls , Kesha , and some of the other children from orphanage were hollyhocked and harashed by a trio of older boys who thought it was hilarious to torment the orphanage kids.

…. now it is twelve months later and while many things have changed since the last ScareFair some things remain the same.

One of those things that remain the same is the fantasy of revenge in the hearts of some young girls….

Suddenly there was cruel saccherine laughter all arround them. “Man you losers are pathetic!”

“When I get my hands on you you little brat …!”

“Now is that any way to talk to the person who can get you out of there? Now you greasy-hair go to your right and walk past the next intersection then turn left , you spike-hair , first of all Bart Simpson would be asshamed of that hair and second turn arround and go back to the scarecrow. You third guy…”

Several minutes later the three miscreants were re-united although they were still hopelessly lost in the maze .

Unknown to them the directions that they had been given had placed them right where the girls had wanted them ….

The poor saps had no idea what they were in for….

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“Um, Tod?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are the girls?”

Tod looked over to the maze only to see that there was a crudely painted sign barring the entrance that read “Closed Back soon.”

Todd wondered why he had a hard lump of consentrated dread in his gut.

Then he remembered some of the troubles that he and Andy had gotten into as youngsters and also remembered that Selkie and Amanda-Marie were their daughters.

Yep, that explained it.

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One of the few things about life in an orphanage that could be said to be ‘good’ , at least more or less, was that some-times older ‘graduates’ from the orphanage would come by to talk or entertain the ‘inmates who were still severing their time’ as one of them put it.

They would play ball-games with the younger children, or they play bored-games , er board-games,(…mmmm….no, the first one was right after all…) or…. they would do magic shows…

…more than one of the younger orphans would look up certain books in the library after they had seen the feats that the older alumni had performed….